mobile

Amp'd Mobile introduced two music-centric multimedia bundles to its services. The service offers full-length tracks and "studio sessions". The Studio Sessions packages are available from $4 to $5 depending on the makeup of the bundle. The packages include:

• Two or three live, full-track recordings;
• A live mastertone recording;
• Behind the scene interview footage;
• Wallpaper of the artist's album cover artwork.

Virgin Mobile USA is going to enter the recycling business. They begin with the new program that when customers buy Virgin's prepaid phones they get a prepaid envelope inside the box to return an old phone in. Virgin Mobile in cooperation with ReCellular, take your unwanted handsets then it will be renewed and then sold or donated.

Yahoo! is testing ads on mobile phones at its WAP portal with actual images not only text. We still don't know the reaction of Yahoo!'s mobile users. It is a fact that images take bandwidth, thus this will be difficulties for global Yahoo! users who don't have unlimited bandwidth on their mobile phone WAP browsing plans, besides that will have to pay to view ads in case they are not on an unlimited plan.

There is a new feature that Virgin Mobile offers the idea is that the carrier is the first who includes a recycling envelope in the box with every phone it sells, then, phones may be renewed and distributed in countries where mobile phones are needed at a less price.

Virgin Mobile working with ReCellular, a leading mobile phone recycler, using paid envelopes it is easy to recycle the handset.

The Bangkok Post reported very interesting news it says that any tourists travelling to Thailand now have a possibility to communicate with local people through an SMS-based service providing English-to-Thai translation via mobile phones.

Thailand is the first country where SMS translation services are introduced under PockTranslate brand by Norway Pock Mobile.

As you probably know, some time earlier Google purchased YouTube.

YouTube chief Chad Hurley announce that you'll be able to take your YouTube with you soon as within the next year. YouTube hopes to "have something on a mobile device".

It is expected there would be a parade of deals with YouTube that create commercial relationships between major media companies and the video-networking site.

During the holiday Disney Mobile is reasoning customers into signing up for its service by means of lowering the cost of its handsets and offering a month of service for free if they sign on by Dec. 31.

Carrier's silver Pantech Corp. DM-P100 flip phone from Disney Mobile is available for free with a service plan, down from an initial price of $60.

Plaxo Mobile Plus is reported to be available from Plaxo an operator of the largest and fastest growing address book network. Plaxo Mobile Plus gives consumers the possibility to get a single, self-updating address book on their mobile phones, which will synchronize their contact information with all of their other communication tools, including Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, AIM, Yahoo! Mail, the Mac OS X Address Book, and Thunderbird.

A new stylish white clamshell handset from Virgin Mobile was named Kyocera Cyclops with a pearl white finish. Not using service contracts and subsidize handsets heavily the company's phones are typically lower end to keep costs down.

Kyocera Cyclops has following features:

• 1.3 megapixel camera
• TXT Tones, contact specific tones for incoming text messages
• VAM (Virgin Mobile Audio Messaging)
• Speakerphone

Cyclops' new VAM feature but it will allow users to set up a buddy list and send short audio clips.

Last week took place Third Screen Film Festival where Entertainment industry executives and wireless types got together at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills . It was the first such event for films made specifically for mobile phones. Todd Spence's "The Lost" beat out the nearly 1,000 submitted short films took the festival's top prize of a $10,000 filmmaker grant.